Anish Kapoor is one of the public’s favourite contemporary artists. His sculptures engage with the public on a scale that has lead to successful commissions around the world. He is the only living artist to be given all of the exhibition space at the Royal Academy and has succeeded in bringing thousands to view his works.

His exhibition is not a retrospective, as such, but rather a selection of some of his favourite older works such as 1000 names (1980), his famous pigment works, combined with new never seen before pieces, such as Tall Tree and The Eye (2009), a 15m sculpture made up of 74 stainless steel balls balancing on each other.

There was a real sense of excitement going around the Anish Kapoor exhibition. The works were entertaining, beguiling and thought provoking. Each work is created to produce a different reaction from the viewer. The tactility and use of colour makes his works fun and give them a noted sense of humour that is often lacking in contemporary art.

The exhibition was primarily interested in the notion of subverting space. Kapoor’s sculptures divert attention away from themselves as physical objects and are instead more noticeable for their colour, material and form in the space. Thus, one is constantly confronted with pieces that question the difference between space and illusion. This is particularly true in pieces such as Yellow (1999), a sun like object that is sunken into the wall but seems flat depending on how close you view it and Non-Objects (1999), a room filled with concave and convex mirrors in different shapes. For many the mirrors were the most successful part of the show: people were fascinated by how their body and the space around them became warped.

More physically striking was Svayambh, Sanskrit for self-generated, a large block of blood red wax travels through the five galleries on a train track, taking 1 hour 30 minute. Kapoor describes the work as a process of sculpture itself: as it moves through the gallery arches it is being shaped by the space itself. Although its colour and size made it impressive I was not convinced, it felt like the sculptor was shaping the gallery rather than the sculpture being shaped by the space. When it reached the end of the tracks, the result was disappointing.

The performative heavily influenced every aspect of the exhibition. This was particularly true of ‘Shooting into the Corner’ (08/09), a large canon firing wax balls through an arch of the Royal Academy. Both as an event and object the piece was one of the most popular, people eagerly awaiting the next shot. The wait and the theatricality of the choreographed ritual created nervous excitement and tension. The event was carried out by a ‘handpicked drama student’ dressed in a boiler suit who seemed to relish the attention of loading up the cannon. The result, a wall covered with red wax, had unconvincing references to the work of Jackson Pollock and Richard Serra and was supposed to evoke associations with violence. The audience gasped and then quietly laughed at the sound of the 20 pound wax shell splatting against the wall at 50mph. The room quickly emptied no one bothering to survey the aftermaths and the reflection, surely a key point in the work.

This work highlights the difficulty with the exhibition. Although many of the works were visually arresting, interesting and thought provoking I felt as though they were somewhat overshadowed by the two performance pieces that were unavoidable in their crowd pleasing theatricality and pretension. Although some works were more convincing than others it was an impressive exhibition that ultimately achieved in its aim making you ask ‘what is sculpture?’